A special assistant attorney general, Jason Davis, argued that justices should uphold Brown's death sentence. Davis says a DeSoto County circuit judge made the proper ruling in 2013 by saying Brown's attorneys failed to prove the inmate has a longstanding mental disability.

Brown, now 46, was sentenced to death in 1995 after being convicted on two counts of murder and one count of capital murder.

Authorities say three women were found hacked to death in a home south of Eudora on Jan. 7, 1993.